Chapter 77

I closed my eyes and tried to organize my thoughts, but honestly, the conclusion had been decided from the start.

When I opened my eyes, I quietly looked at Logwin and spoke.

“Logwin.”

“Y-you believe me?”

“Your way with words is truly terrible.”

At my words, Logwin looked at me with a face full of despair.

At the same time, the merchant’s face began to flush with anger.

But it was too early to relax.

*Pfft*

I pulled out a skewer from my pocket and pierced the merchant’s shoe, pinning it to the ground.

Suddenly unable to run, the merchant looked at me with disbelief and asked.

“A-adventurer?”

“But merchant, your lies are terrible.”

“W-why me…? It was them who gathered the monsters!”

However, I ignored the merchant’s words and opened my mouth.

“Your lies have too many holes. Even if I wanted to believe you, I just can’t.”

“What do you mean…?”

“First, you said you overheard Logwin’s group, but this place isn’t where they were resting. It’s where you were hiding. Meaning, you didn’t go to Logwin, but his group came to you.”

At my words, the merchant flinched as if I had hit a nerve, but soon began to stammer excuses.

“T-that’s because I was running away…”

“If that were the case, you would have screamed while running. And I’m not done yet.”

As I said that, I raised a finger.

“Second, Logwin’s technique is one that draws the monsters’ attention to himself. It emits a mana wave that stimulates the monsters. But when the monsters attacked, they always targeted the front where you and the monsters were, not the cargo we were riding. If you think about it, you were the first to notice and be attacked when the monsters came.”

“That’s because I looked weak…”

“That’s not all. If Logwin had used his technique to lure the monsters, even if others didn’t notice, I, who am particularly sensitive to mana flow, would have felt it.”

Indeed, when Logwin first used his provoking technique, I felt the mana emanating from his body.

“Third, if you were trying to lure the monsters to defeat us, why would you go out of your way to prevent harm to others while using a technique to provoke the monsters? Instead, you would have hidden that technique thoroughly and shifted the burden of dealing with the monsters to us.”

“…”

As I continued to present evidence against the merchant’s claims, he stopped arguing and began to glare at me with murderous eyes.

“Well, the last one is my subjective judgment… I’m not particularly skilled at reading people’s intentions, but I can read the expressions of those who eat my cooking quite well. It’s like an occupational hazard. But over the past few days, all I saw on Logwin’s group’s faces while eating with me was pure enjoyment of the meal.”

When I finished speaking, Logwin looked at me with a touched expression.

And the merchant, having shed all pretense, began to growl at me with eyes that seemed ready to devour me.

“Damn lizard… If you’re a lizard, act like a stupid lizard and just get fooled…”

“Ah! That’s species discrimination! You damn discriminator!”

“Judging by your reaction, that’s practically a confession, isn’t it?”

“You bastard… How dare you insult Kurt?”

Finally, as the merchant growled, practically confessing, the atmosphere among those gathered completely shifted.

Thus, Logwin’s group stepped forward one by one and spoke to the merchant.

“You have no way out, powerless as you are.”

“Right. Just surrender quietly and confess what you’ve done.”

“So, all the hardship we’ve endured was because of you…”

“Nyahaha. I can’t just laugh this off.”

However, surrounded by Logwin’s group, the merchant, far from giving up, began to laugh maniacally.

“…Kehehehe. You think I have no power? Is that what you really think?”

But the merchant, refusing to give up, reached into his pocket to pull something out.

It was a black ore surrounded by an ominous red mist.

Holding the ominous ore high, the merchant, completely unhinged, shouted.

“Since it’s come to this, none of you will leave here alive!”

*Pfft*

“…Pfft?”

But before the merchant could use the ore, a sound similar to the one heard earlier came from the hand holding the ore.

Hearing the sound of something being skewered, the merchant blankly looked at his right hand.

And seeing the long iron skewer embedded in his right hand, he screamed.

“Kyaaaaah! My hand! My hand…!”

It was the same skewer that had pinned his shoe to the ground earlier.

The skewer I threw had precisely pierced the merchant’s wrist, and in shock, he dropped the ore to the ground.

“Right. You said earlier that if we were wiped out, you’d be wiped out too, so what gain was there in summoning monsters.”

“Grrrr…!”

“It’s the opposite. A reversal of thinking. You didn’t summon monsters to harm us, but rather, summoning monsters was a side effect of whatever you were doing.”

I picked up the black ore the merchant had dropped.

“And I think that process was for smuggling this item. Were you planning to use this as a last resort to summon monsters and go down with us?”

But the merchant’s struggle ended before it even began.

Finally, having lost all his hidden cards, he was quietly restrained by us.

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After completely subduing the merchant and interrogating him, the full story came to light.

The merchant appeared to be a trader profiting from trade between villages.

But in reality, he was a smuggler moving forbidden goods between cities.

And the item he was smuggling was the cause of all this trouble.

An Awakening Stone, an ore with the side effect of luring nearby monsters.

This Awakening Stone, a collection of corrupted mana, was naturally a powerful item banned in the open, like pink hallucinogenic wool.

To summarize its effect, it’s an Evolution Stone.

An ordinary monster consuming it would skip stages and immediately become an Awakening Species, while a human consuming it would mutate into a demon, a human with acquired magical organs.

And monsters are instinctively drawn to this ore.

The merchant pulling out the Awakening Stone as a last resort wasn’t to summon monsters but to transform himself into a demon.

If he had actually consumed the Awakening Stone, we would have had to fight a demon appearing out of nowhere in a boring battle…

Good thing we subdued him beforehand.

Thus, taking the subdued smuggler, we entered the city and immediately handed him over to the guards.

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After everything was over, and after enjoying a feast at the Adventurer Guild the next morning.

“So, this is really goodbye.”

We were preparing to part ways with Logwin’s group.

While we needed to continue moving to the Village of the World Tree, Logwin’s group planned to stay in this city for a while, so parting was inevitable.

“While I’ve taken on various requests as an adventurer… This request is one I’ll never forget.”

“It was quite memorable for me too.”

“Honestly, when that smuggler guy blabbered and made us out to be murderers, I was really sweating.”

“Well, that’s because you’re not exactly a smooth talker.”

“Hey, Matilda, do you think you could have done any better?”

Logwin and Matilda started bickering even at the moment of parting, and Jerry and Minya, looking at them with pity, soon took over the farewells.

“Still, thanks to you keeping a cool head and judging the situation, things didn’t get unnecessarily complicated. Really, thank you.”

“It’s nothing, I didn’t do anything that great.”

“Nyahaha. So modest. But aside from that, I think I’ll remember your cooking more than the smuggler.”

At Minya’s words, Logwin and Matilda, who had been bickering, stopped and simultaneously agreed with her.

“Right! That bulgogi hotpot!”

“I just liked the bulgogi more.”

“I want to taste that golden pheasant teppanyaki again someday.”

“Nyahaha. Next time, I definitely want to try the double-headed skewer with beer!”

As the two talked about their favorite dishes, the other two also started talking about the delicious meals they had, and even Mari, Karina, and Serena joined in, discussing the food.

Thus, the group, having talked about food since morning, soon looked at me with regretful eyes.

“It will really be a fond memory.”

At Logwin’s group’s earnest gaze, I scratched my cheek and said.

“Well… Next time we meet, I’ll cook for you again.”

“Okay. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Thus, after saying goodbye to Logwin’s group, we turned our steps towards our next journey.

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